


It Eats Your Heart

by Luna_Lee



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Trauma, GaaLee Bingo 2020, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Horror, M/M, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:46:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26980864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_Lee/pseuds/Luna_Lee
Summary: There's an old sprawling house, filled with memory and decay. It's gates are locked, it's doors are locked, but it's well tended by Maito Gai, kept on by Gaara's family despite some forgotten tragedy that took place a decade ago. Gaara doesn't remember it. He doesn't remember so much of his time in that house.When his father dies, he and his siblings return to their childhood home and the ghosts within.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee, Hyuuga Neji/Tenten, Nara Shikamaru/Temari
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: GaaLee Bingo





	It Eats Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't expected to start a brand new fic, but then GaaLee Bingo is all month long and I wouldn't be me if I didn't take on more than I can chew. So, here is the first installment of my first ever horror fic, and my first prompt fill for GaaLee Bingo! 
> 
> The prompt for this particular chapter is 'demons', which I used _very_ loosely. 
> 
> A huge shout out to my roommate for reading over this before I posted. Since I've never done horror before, I was incredibly nervous about tackling horror writing. Thankfully, since the pandemic started, I've been binging horror nonstop, so I think it's given me a better grasp on it than I might have had last year. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

_A house is a home  
made of love and rot,  
the boards are bleached bone  
and the windows empty eyes_

_A house is a home  
made of marrow and soul,  
memories that whisper  
and secrets only the walls know_

_Come home, come home  
the door is always open to you   
come home, come home  
the door is a mouth   
and it will eat you_

Chapter One: The Dark Has Eyes, Don't Turn Out the Lights

Too often, ghost stories begin with dark nights or horrible, gruesome death. Real ghosts don't follow the patterns of a novel; there are no beginnings, middles, and ends; no rising action and falling action; no denouement. Ghosts do not achieve resolution; ghost do not experience the climax of their own tale. There are no happy—or even sad—endings. There are no endings at all. 

Ghost stories go on and on and on, rambling endlessly towards nothing and no where, only stopping for the finite amount of words one can speak or write in one's lifetime. 

That is the true horror of death: ceaseless, unending nothingness. 

_______________________________

The house was smaller than he remembered it. And somehow bigger, too. Big the way his father had always been big. Big the way someone of little character had to be big: by taking the good from others and fashioning a mask out of it—charm, eloquence, grace, poise—so that all the ugly parts were hidden behind beautiful artifice. 

Gaara had always been able to see the monsters beneath porcelain facades, though. Whether it was his father, or his uncle, or his own reflection in a mirror, he'd always been able to see past the humanity of a thing to the demon within. And everyone had demons—even houses. 

The car door slammed shut, making him jump. He tore his eyes away from the dark windows of the house to watch his sister meet the ground's keeper, Maito Gai. Gaara remembered him only vaguely, in snatches of memory that sometimes surfaced when he least expected. The rest of his memories—of Maito Gai, his father, his uncle, their house—had been lost. 

“—to see you, too.” Temari's voice was muffled, but Gaara could still hear the strain in her words. 

“Can't believe ol' Gai's still here,” Kankurō muttered from the back seat.

“Father's estate still pays him to tend the property, doesn't it?” Gaara asked. 

“Sure, but after what happened—” Kankurō cut himself off, something catching in his throat. Not grief, never grief. Kankurō didn't grieve. He boxed up his grief like old clothes to be taken for donation, only to forget about donating them entirely and leaving them for the moths in the attic. Did their old house have an attic? Gaara couldn't remember. 

“Do you remember?” Kankurō asked, that something still caught in his throat. 

“No.” 

“Right.” 

The door opened, and Temari leaned forward, her expression tight. “Everything's in order. Let's get inside before it gets dark.” 

Gaara looked up at the blue sky, still bright with early evening light. 

“We still have a couple hours before sunset,” he told her, still staring up at the sky. 

Temari's expression, reflecting vaguely in the passenger window, tightened. “Come on, I just wanna get inside and settled before dinner.” 

“You just wanna call your boyfriend,” Kankurō teased, opening his door. 

“Fiance,” Temari corrected. Fiance was still a new enough development that Kankurō often needed reminding. 

“You comin', squirt?” Kankurō asked, his door slamming shut a second later. 

Gaara considered staying in the car. It wouldn't be comfortable to sleep in, but it had to be better than his old bedroom. 

The trunk popped open, and Temari and Kankurō disappeared from view. Their voices carried through the rear seats of the car, distant and distorted.

“—think he's okay?” 

“I don't know.” 

“What'd Gai say? About—ya know?” 

“I didn't bring it up.” 

Gaara shifted, unbuckling his seat belt and opening the car door. His siblings' conversation died abruptly. 

“You gonna help us carry shit inside?” Kankurō asked.

Gaara grunted his compliance, but his attention was split, divided so many times over he couldn't decide which direction to move in. From one corner of his eye, he could see Maito Gai watching him. From his other side, their house loomed, also watching him. 

“Here,” Temari said, handing Gaara his own suitcase. “You didn't pack a lot.” 

“We're not moving in,” Gaara reminded his siblings. 

“Fuck no,” Kankurō agreed. “You couldn't pay me to live here again.” 

“Technically, dad did pay us,” Temari pointed out. 

Kankurō scoffed, dropping another suitcase onto the ground. “Not to live here, he didn't.” 

“No, just to lay him to rest.” Temari slammed the trunk shut, clapping her hands together to get rid of the dust that had been kicked up by the roads. 

“Still say we shoulda left his ashes at the crematorium.” 

“Hindsight's twenty-twenty,” Temari said. “Come on. It's getting dark.” 

Gaara looked up at the sky again, searching for the bright blue that had colored their day, but the sky was already fading to the black of night. 

“Did it always get dark early out here?”

_______________________________

Gaara's room—located on the third floor—had always been the coldest room in the house, but he'd forgotten just how deep the chill could sink. He shivered, pulling his heavy comforter over his head to shut out the cold. It did little to warm him, and he curled in on himself, hoping to garner even an ounce more warmth from his core. 

Was this why he'd always had trouble sleeping as a child? 

He shifted, curling his toes and flexing them, a poor attempt to promote circulation in his icy feet. He was shivering, his teeth chattering in his skull, his body convulsing, and his joints aching. He might as well have slept in the car for all the good a solid bed was doing him. 

Eventually he'd give up on sleep, but it was still early enough in his first attempt that he didn't want to get out of bed just yet. He'd developed particular habits over the years, habits that helped him sleep, habits that made restless nights more bearable. At this point in his life, sleepless nights were a defining character trait, and his nightly rituals were less coping mechanism and more character flaw. Temari had said he should try therapy or sleep studies, but Gaara had chosen to ignore her and embrace his flaws. 

The gentle hum of the decrepit house's failing heating system filled Gaara's room, white noise to mask the silence. Beneath that, Gaara could hear the creaking of the floorboards in the hall and the buzz of electricity, running through the plethora of nightlights that dotted the dark corners of their house. He could hear the gentle whisper of the old clock that lived in the entrance hall three floors down and the shuffling gust of wind outside his window that sounded like breathing. 

Between the chill and the noise, he was fighting a losing battle against wakefulness. Admitting defeat this early on wasn't like him, but he could blame the house for unsettling his usual routine. He was sure he could blame the house for a lot of things, in fact. 

Gaara sat up, his comforter sliding from around him and exposing his bare arms to the chill air. 

“Fucking house,” he complained, shivering as he rose from his bed. He wrapped his comforter around him like armor against the cold before making his way from his room. 

The narrow hallway would have been pitch black if not for the tiny lights dotted along the walls, like fairies. There were no windows for the light of the moon to enter the long hall—whoever had built their house had apparently been under the impression that one wouldn't need to get up in the middle of the night—and so at some point in the house's history someone had come up with the brilliant idea of installing sconces along the walls. Originally, the path would have been lit by flame, but these days the dim, orange light came from bulbs. 

Downstairs, the kitchen was dark, despite the large window that overlooked the garden and warmed the tiles first thing in the morning. The faint light from the hall barely reached beyond the kitchen's threshold, casting shadowy figures dancing along the cupboards. The large window, curving around the circular room, reflected like the glass of a mirror, and Gaara looked away. 

The kitchen was the only room in their sprawling house that had ever felt big—despite not being the largest room—or warm, because of this it had always been Gaara's favorite room. In fact, it had been the only room he could ever remember liking in the carcass of their house. 

It had always been a carcass to Gaara—rotting, dead, and hollow. His father's obsession with family lineage and wealth had tainted every corner of their sprawling, ugly mansion; his father's cruelty and violence had seeped into every floorboard; his father's apathy and disdain had been the grout to fill every nook and cranny. Except for the kitchen. 

The kitchen had always been safe from his father.

Blindly, he felt along the wall for the light switch, unable to drudge up the memory of where it ought to be.

“Gaara?” 

He jumped, his comforter tangling around his feet and sending him falling to the floor with a thud. A light flicked on. 

“Shit, I'm so sorry,” Temari said, leaning forward to help him up. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” he managed around his heart lodged in his throat. “I didn't hear you come in.” 

“Sorry,” she said again. Her expression was still tight, stress pinching her mouth and making her eyes narrow. “Can't sleep?” 

“Do I ever?” 

Temari let herself laugh, but it didn't light her eyes up the way genuine laughter did. “Yeah, me either. Should I make us some tea? I brought chamomile.” 

“Sure.”

“I didn't think I'd already be having trouble sleeping, but I guess it shouldn't be that surprising,” she said. 

“It's strange being back,” Gaara agreed. 

“It feels like a nightmare.” 

“I've had nightmares more pleasant than this place.” 

“You haven't had nightmares lately. Have you?” 

The question was pointed—Gaara could tell by the way Temari didn't meet his gaze and the lightness of her tone. She wasn't making idle conversation, she was fishing for information. 

“No.” Gaara didn't often lie to his siblings, especially not his sister, but there were some things he couldn't bring himself to tell her. He knew that his difficulties—which were numerous—were a burden, and they hadn't been hers to bear for a long time. 

“That's a relief.” She knew he was lying. Gaara could see it in her eyes, in the way her hand gripped the tea kettle. 

“It is.” 

“I hope being back here doesn't—I hope it's not going to be a problem for you.” 

She wanted to say something else. Gaara could practically see the words choking her, crowding her tongue, pressing against her teeth in a bid for escape. She wanted to say something else, but she couldn't. She couldn't speak it into existence. 

“It'll be fine.” 

He doubted it would be, but they only had to stay for two weeks, and after that he could return to his life and never think about this place or their father ever again. Hell, maybe he'd even go to therapy when this was over. Temari was always trying to get him to go to therapy, she was always telling him he needed to face his demons. 

But facing his demons felt like staring down the barrel of a gun, and he'd never managed to summon the courage to pull the trigger. 

“Honey?” Temari asked, rummaging around in the pantry while the water in the kettle boiled. 

Gaara could hear it, angry and hot and clawing at the metal of the kettle. The fire beneath burned blue, flames licking the bottom of the black kettle. 

“Please.” 

From beyond the threshold of the kitchen, the floorboards creaked. 

“You guys couldn't sleep either?” Kankurō's gruff voice echoed from the hall. 

“Want some tea?” Temari returned with honey, three mugs, and the box of chamomile. 

“Might as well.” 

The tea kettle whistled, its shrill pitch echoing around the otherwise quiet kitchen. 

“You cold?” Kankurō asked, plopping down into a chair at the kitchen table. 

“What?” 

Kankurō nodded towards the blanket still wrapped around Gaara.

“Oh, yeah. My room's freezing.” 

Kankurō's gaze slid from Gaara to Temari, then back. “Guess dad never got around to fixing your windows.” 

There had never been any problems with Gaara's windows that he could remember, and while his memory wasn't great, he could remember the last hour and a half of tossing and turning clearly. He hadn't once felt that the cold was due to poorly insulated windows. 

“Tea should warm you up,” Temari said, setting their mugs on the table. “I can talk to Gai tomorrow and see about having him look at your windows.” 

“It's not the windows.” 

“Well, whatever it is,” Temari said, not meeting his eye. She blew the curling steam from her mug, holding it close. 

“I think it's the heater,” Gaara said. “I don't think my radiator ever worked right.” 

“If it's that bad, just sleep in another room. 'S not like we're here to fix up the place.” 

Gaara didn't like sleeping in his old room, but he liked the idea of sleeping in another room even less. “I'll manage.” 

“If you're sure. I think the guest room on the third floor is clean, if you change your mind.” 

Gaara picked up his tea, leeching warmth from the ceramic until his hands burned. “I'll be fine. I'd rather stay in my room.”

“'Better the devil you know',” Kankurō said into his mug. 

_______________________________

Maito Gai was big the way Gaara's father had always wanted to be big—big of heart, of character, of mettle. He was a good man, better than most, even if he looked at Gaara with a strangeness in his eyes. 

“Your sister tells me you're having issues with the windows,” Gai said. He spoke to Gaara levelly, as though he'd practiced what he would say on the off chance he misspoke, but even so his voice still boomed around the little room. 

“I think it's the radiator,” Gaara told him, standing awkwardly in the tight doorway.

Gai gave a deep, throaty hum, thoughtful and doubtful all at once. “Shouldn't be anything wrong with that. I checked the heating before you three arrived—and all the lights.” 

“The lights?” 

“Fresh bulbs in every fixture,” Gai clarified. “Didn't want you kids ending up in the dark, did I?” 

Gaara watched Gai, carefully considering the easy words and the uneasy meaning beneath them. “We won't be here long.” 

“It's not about how long you're here,” Gai murmured, the words quiet, as though he hadn't meant to speak. He shook himself, leaning more heavily against his cane. “I'd be a dreadful caretaker if I'd left you with burnt out bulbs, now wouldn't I?” 

“I wouldn't say 'dreadful',” Gaara intoned, watching the tight edges of Gai's mouth and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. 

“And I appreciate that,” Gai said with a tight smile. “Very generous, but it is my job. Your father didn't keep me on to laze about, after all!” 

Gaara knew that there were pieces missing, that it was only a half truth—maybe even less than half. 

“You've done a good job keeping the house in good condition,” Gaara said, lacking anything else of merit to say. 

Gai gave Gaara a beaming smile, the strangeness of his eyes chased away for a brief moment. As he looked at Gaara, his expression fell, his face went pale, and his gaze hovered just beyond Gaara. He cleared his throat, looking away. 

“I'll be a bit,” Gai told him. The words were gruff, almost harsh. “You don't need to keep an old man company if you don't want to.” 

Gaara knew he was being dismissed, but he stayed, watching Maito Gai as he began checking over the windows. He was ignored now, as though he'd left the room. Maito Gai would not try to dismiss him again. There were rules, after all—unspoken though they might be—about speaking to the son of his former employer with any authority, so Gaara remained in the doorway, unable to leave even as tension mounted between them in the silence. 

Maito Gai's large hand slid down the seam of one window, seeking out the drafts Gaara knew weren't there. The room was still cold, even in the daylight, but less so than the night before. The cold in the light of the sun felt natural, average, bearable. Perhaps the room wanted Maito Gai to doubt Gaara, perhaps the room wanted him to doubt himself. It would be easy to make Gaara doubt himself, to doubt what he'd felt and how he'd not slept a wink because of the cold wrapped around his skin. 

He wondered if he'd ever get any sleep in this forsaken house.

The sun, glittering outside and untouched by the dark of the house, cast its light through the window, catching against Maito Gai's sun-kissed hands, as though drawn to him like a magnet. On his pinky, a heavy ring sat, its thick band surrounding the base the finger in shining silver. The ring's face held Gaara's eyes, like staring into the face of a familiar friend or an almost-forgotten lover. In stark black, but elegant lines 根性 rested within the silver, made from some precious stone that Gaara could not identify. 

“Konjō,” he whispered into the silence, as though the word held some sacred meaning. It hooked itself into his heart, tugging at him, begging of him, though what it begged he could not say. He tried to grasp at it, but it slipped from him like water down a drain. 

At the window, Maito Gai froze, as though turned to stone. 

Time seemed to freeze with Maito Gai, and Gaara stumbled upon the missing pieces of his childhood and teenage years in this house, fumbling for anything to return the motion of the room to itself. 

“I'm sorry,” he managed, and the words echoed oddly in the oppressive silence of his small bedroom. 

“There's no need,” Gai said soberly, his dark eyes rooted to the ring on his pinky. He straightened, clapping his hands together, and the sound was like thunder bouncing off the walls of his room. “It's safe to say there's no draft! These windows are as good as the day I installed them.”

Maito Gai did not turn to smile at Gaara, but he could picture it as clearly as though he were—in Gaara's mind, Maito Gai turned to him and gave him a thumb's up, proud and sure. The image was like memory, familiar and warm, but Gaara could not remember Maito Gai ever smiling at him like that. 

“Then it's the radiator?”

“Nope!” Gai declared, picking up his cane. “The draft could be coming from elsewhere in the room, of course! But in the meantime, I can bring in a space-heater.” 

“Thank you.” 

Maito Gai crossed the room, his stride sure and thunking with the sound of his cane against the wood floor. “I'll get that heater for you now.” 

He was looking for an escape, an excuse to get away from Gaara. His kindness had been tested, his patience was at its limit. Maito Gai was a good man, but even good men had their limits.   
_______________________________

The space-heater groaned. 

Gaara had placed it directly next to his bed, so that its hot air blew against him. It made only a fractional difference against the chill in his room. He still shivered and shuddered, his teeth still chattered in his skull, and his extremities still felt like blocks of ice, as bloodless as if he were dead. 

The heater at least chased some of the ache from his bones, but it was hardly enough to count. 

Gaara stared at it, mesmerized by the little red light on its face that indicated it was plugged in. It was a red eye, a one-eyed creature watching Gaara in the dim light of his room. The nightlight in the corner of his room, directly shining onto his bed with its faint orange hue, cast the heater's shadow across the wall, stretching it against his closed door. 

Had there always been so many nightlights in their house? Did Temari and Kankurō have ones in their rooms? He could understand the windowless hall needing sconces, but his bedroom? He was twenty-six years old, not six. He wasn't scared of the dark, not anymore—at least, that's what he told himself. And if he always fell asleep with the hall light on in his little apartment, or if he always forgot to turn off his desk lamp, that was just forgetfulness. He wasn't scared, he wasn't afraid. 

What did he have to be afraid of? 

Despite the cold, his eyes drifted closed, casting him in terrifying darkness. The glow of his nightlight and the red light of his heater broke through the seam of his closed eyes, and he peeled them open again, staring at the shadow against his door. It rippled for a moment, a figure reaching out of the darkness, but when he opened his eyes further, the shadow was once more the solid shape of the heater. 

Gaara's eyes, heavy from his previous sleepless night, closed against his will, and he drifted in darkness. 

In his room, his nightlight burst.

He bolted upright in bed, his heart racing. 

The shadows in his room turned to look at him, warped wraiths reaching towards his bed. He fumbled, scrambling to pull his feet up to his chest, to pull his covers up his body. The space heater groaned, a creature in the bleak blackness of his room, its red eye watching him. 

_“Gaara.”_

He reached out blindly, his trembling hand seeking his phone or the lamp at his bedside. 

The white light from his phone illuminated his room, and the shadows settled, as normal and uninteresting as the mundane could be. They were just shadows. He was just imagining things. Being back in this house, being back among his forgotten history, being so near to his father's terrible legacy had simply unsettled him. That was all, that was all. 

He still fell asleep with his bedside table light on.   
_______________________________

“Ah, Baki, it's good to see you.” Temari stepped aside to let Baki into the cramped entrance hall—if one could call it a hall. It was more a closet, with space for double doors and a thin staircase, and little else. There were two more doors, one on either side of the staircase, leading to other rooms on the ground floor, but even this felt like an impossibility in the little space of the entrance hall. They were there, yet they shouldn't have been. 

“I see the estate is still in good condition,” Baki said by way of greeting. “Maito Gai's done a good job tending the property.” 

“He's a dedicated man,” Temari agreed. “We're lucky he was willing to stay on.” 

“Yes, especially after—” Baki noticed Gaara standing on the steps behind Temari. “Gaara. I hadn't expected to see you.” 

Gaara frowned at Baki, at the lies the hid behind his eyes and in the lines of his face. “Why shouldn't you? He was my father, after all.” 

“Of course,” Baki said, waving his hand once. It was more like a strike, like a slash than a dismissive wave. Baki was a straight-faced, no nonsense kind of man. He always had been. He was not a man of little character, but he was a man of ill repute if only because of the type of clients he took on. Gaara wondered at the contradiction of Baki—how a man could be both good and wretched, how a man could do the work Baki did and still go home to a wife and kids. Then again, his father had once had a wife, and he'd had children, even though he'd never loved them. 

But Baki was not the same as Rasa. Baki loved his children. It was obvious in the photographs he carried of them in his wallet, in the toys in his car, in the childish artwork on his refrigerator at home—not that Gaara had ever been to Baki's home. 

“Shall we?” Temari said, her voice prodding and insistent. 

“Of course. The common room?” 

“Yes. I've made tea, and Gai called in a friend to help with lunch.” 

“Wonderful.” 

Baki squeezed himself through the little door to the right of the staircase, his large shoulders hardly fitting through the space. Temari gave Gaara a piercing look, before following after him. 

Gaara turned back down the narrow passage and making his way up another short flight of stairs into the hall. The hall on the ground floor was filled with the soft light from the large bay windows in the dining room to the right, but to the left it was black as pitch, hiding the door to the cellar in its shadows. 

He took the path beside the staircase, going straight down the hall. At the end, the soft light from the kitchen window touched the wall, reflecting off the dark wood and catching against the gilded frame of an old portrait. Gaara didn't look at the painting—he never looked at the paintings—as he turned and made his way into the kitchen. 

“—want to be here.” 

Gaara froze at the end of the hall, standing with his back to the portrait. 

“I know,” Maito Gai's deep voice echoed down the hall. “But I appreciate your assistance, Tenten. I know how difficult this is.” 

“I won't pretend it's not harder for you,” a woman's voice—Tenten, Gaara assumed—replied. 

“Perhaps, but I will not discount your feelings on the matter.” 

“I'm almost curious,” Tenten said quietly. “I mean, I haven't seen him since—not that I really want to, of course.” 

“It is an odd thing,” Gai said, as though agreeing with Tenten on the matter. 

“Neji almost didn't let me come.” 

Gai chuckled. “I'm amazed he didn't come with you.” 

“I wouldn't let him. Of the two of us, I think I'm the least likely to lose it if I run into him.” 

“Really? I would have thought the opposite.” 

There was the banging of a cabinet and then the clatter of dishes. “Not where Lee's concerned. I mean, not that I didn't love him just as much, but Neji—it's strange. I'm as protective as him, but I think Neji forgets himself.” 

“And you don't?” 

“I've never forgotten.” Her voice had dropped to a quiet, sad whisper, and Gaara took a step forward, straining his ears to hear. “Neji bottles it all up, but I couldn't do that. I—I couldn't forget.” 

“Neither could I.” 

A door opened in the kitchen, the noise echoing down the hall. Temari's voice followed, drowning out the creak of the door. “How's lunch coming?” 

“Just finished!” 

“Do you need help?”

“Do you always help the help?” Tenten gave a little laugh, almost derisive in its cadence. 

“You know that's now how we see you.” 

“I'm just being cheeky,” Tenten replied breezily. “If you'd like to help, by all means.” 

“What do you need?” 

Gaara, unwilling to make himself known to Tenten, turned, intent on making his way back to the common room. He stopped short, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as he came face-to-face with the portrait's heavy gaze. It was an old portrait, painted in the fashion of the Victorian's, somber and dark. The woman in the portrait was unknown to Gaara, some distant relative that had died in the early part of the twentieth century. Her features were delicate, almost fragile, like glass so thin even touching it would cause it to break. 

She had the faint brown skin of his mother's side of the family, but she had to have been from his father's side if her portrait was hanging here. 

He stepped forward, tempted to approach the portrait and take a closer look. Her deep set eyes of darkest amber, followed him.

“Gaara? There you are. We're starting,” Temari had come from the common room and stood in the dark of the hallway, where the light from the kitchen nor the dining room touched. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly, unable to look away from the eyes of the portrait. 

“You okay?” 

He finally turned to Temari, her face rippling in the dark. “Yeah. Fine.” 

The common room was warm, the light from the sun streaming through the window to heat the thick rug at the center, and the fireplace was lit, crackling with added heat. Gaara hadn't set foot in any of the rooms of the house besides the kitchen, one of the bathrooms, and his own room, but the moment he stepped through the common room, he felt transported. 

The entire room was cast in a maroon glow, and though the room should have been cozy, it was not. Instead, it held the artifice of warmth, a mask to deny the cold. Against one wall, another painting hung, but unlike the portrait in the hall, this was an old emakimono that someone had bastardized by hanging in full along the wall. It's roller had been removed, and the silk fabric had been fitted on a frame and surrounded by a gaudy frame more suited to the baroque than the Heian. The painting filled the entire wall, directly across from the fireplace, so that the eyes of its inhabitants watched the center of the common room. 

Gaara couldn't decide what the story of the painting was, and he didn't look for long, afraid of the characters' empty eyes and pale faces. 

“Lunch looks great,” Kankurō said, dragging Gaara's anxiety from the emakimono to the center of the room, where everyone was gathered around a low table. Lunch was crowded around the table, more plates and cups than necessary for four people. Gaara wondered, a brief thrill of horror creeping along his skin, if Tenten and Gai would be joining them. 

“Thanks,” Tenten said, her gaze snapping away from Gaara and back to Kankurō. 

Gaara hovered behind the empty armchair, unnerved, half expecting their father to be sitting in its depths when he stepped around it. 

“Sit down,” Temari urged, coming up behind him and giving him a nudge. 

The armchair was empty. Of course it was empty. The entire reason they'd come back to this place was that their father had died. 

“Shall we eat lunch first?” Baki asked. “I imagine talk of your father will only upset your appetites.” 

“No shit,” Kankurō said. 

Behind Gaara, Tenten's heavy gaze burned his skin. Was he the one she hadn't wanted to see? The door to the common room closed a moment later, but Gaara still felt the weight of eyes on him. 

An hour later, with their lunch finished and the table cleared, Baki opened his suitcase and pulled documents from within. 

“Now, I've already gone over this with a fine-toothed comb, and I doubt there's anything in here that any of you will want to contest, but I suggest going over this yourselves, as well. You three are all that's left of your father's family, so there's hardly much to argue over, but there are some—” Here he paused, taking a steady breath. “There are some issues that you may find less than pleasant.” 

“Such as?” Temari was the first to ask. 

“This house,” Baki said, gesturing around them in that decisive way of his, “is to go to Gaara, however, only after he has fulfilled certain expectations.” 

“I don't want the house,” Gaara said quickly. He didn't care what his father wanted from him, he wouldn't take the house. 

“According to your father's will, the house is yours,” Baki countered. 

“Why Gaara?” Temari asked, something hard in her voice. 

“I don't know your father's mind,” Baki said heavily. “I only know what's in his will. Gaara is to inherit the house, but he must agree not to sell the property—”

“I don't want it,” Gaara repeated. 

“—furthermore, there's a letter here about the stipulations of this particular bit of inheritance.” Baki pulled a letter from his suitcase, holding it out to Gaara. 

“I don't want it.” 

“I am aware—and you can, of course, refuse—” The word caught in Baki's throat, and he coughed hard, reaching for the lone glass of water still sitting on the table. “Excuse me. As I was saying, while you are able to contest this will, you still need to go over everything. Your father left all three of you letters—” Again, he reached into his suitcase, taking out two more letters. “These are addressed to each of you individually. From what I've gathered, the rules of your inheritance hinge on accepting these letters, reading them, and carrying out his final wishes within. If you don't want the house, that's perfectly fine, but you'll have to understand that you can't sell it. Either you take the house, or you get nothing.” 

“Wait, Dad didn't leave Gaara anything else?” 

“No,” Baki confirmed. “Just the house. He left you his money,” he went on, looking at Temari. “And for Kankurō, he left control of his business affairs. You can, of course, sell your stocks and control of the business to anyone else on the board, but that is what your father has left you.” 

“That's ridiculous,” Temari said. “Why would he leave the _business_ to _Kankurō_?” 

“Gee, thanks, sis.” 

“Shut up. You know you don't want it.” 

“No shit,” Kankurō agreed. “I'd rather take the money.”

“Unfortunately, this is what your father's will states. Temari, you are welcome to share the money with your brothers, of course, but Kankurō, I'm sorry to say, you cannot sell your shares of the business to Temari.” 

“What the fuck? Why not? She's the only one in this family that would even know what to do with it!” 

“It's in the will,” Baki said with a shrug. The gesture was odd on him, unnatural, too careless for a man of his disposition. “As I've said, this is the way the will works. You can contest it in court—it won't be easy, and I'd certainly be happy to help—but I'd recommend reading over these letters before you make any decisions. It might give you some insight on your father.” 

Kankurō snorted derisively. “Doubtful.” 

“If we want to contest it—which we do—what will that look like? How long will that take?” 

“It depends. As I said, contesting a will—especially one like your father's—is not an easy process. It will take time—and money—but it can be done.” 

Temari sighed, heavy and tired. “We'll need to go over the will ourselves—and these stupid letters—but I definitely want to contest it.” 

“Same,” Kankurō grunted. 

“As do I.” 

“Then why don't I leave this to you, and you can call me once you three have discussed this further?” 

Temari saw Baki to the door, while Gaara and Kankurō sat in the common room, each staring at the letters from their dead father. 

“I don't even wanna open this,” Kankurō said into the silence, tossing the letter onto the coffee table. 

Gaara felt much the same, but he couldn't bring himself to speak. He stared down at his name, written in his father's familiar hand, and felt cold with dread. 

Their father didn't give anything away—not even in death would he give them something without making them pay a heavy price. Gaara knew that the moment he broke the seal on the envelope he would be damning himself, unleashing his father's demons, and trapping himself in his father's machinations. 

He rose from his seat, crossing in front of Kankurō and moving to the fireplace. The fire crackled, an ember popping in the hearth. He didn't want the house, he didn't want anything from his father. He'd only come with this siblings because he'd felt like he had to. 

Gaara looked down at the letter, at his name in his father's hand, and his lip curled. 

“Fuck you,” he breathed, and tossed the letter into the fire.

**Author's Note:**

> [Emakimono](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emakimono#:~:text=Emakimono%20\(%E7%B5%B5%E5%B7%BB%E7%89%A9%2C%20emaki%2Dmono,image%20in%20telling%20a%20narrative.) are a type of Japanese painted scroll that became popular during the late Heian period.


End file.
